Thinking caps for those with good memories!
 

A long time ago I remember posting a thread somewhere about a newspaper notice where two sisters were marrying but when I looked for the marriages only one seemed to have actually taken place. I'm presuming I added this one marriage to my tree and I should have added a note to the other "bride" about her marriage or the lack of it.

I feel the date was the 1840s/50s and the area was Bristol. I've looked all over my tree but I can't find anything to fit. The name House or Thomas House is ringing some bells but (if that's right) he is probably the spouse of the one who didn't apparently marry and is therefore not on my tree as an actual individual, but he should be recorded in some of the notes. Unfortunately, a search of the word house has several hundred matches :o

I now realise I already have a branch of Houses (including two Thomases) elsewhere as well as a branch of Howses too, so I might be getting confused.

So............does anyone remember this on this site? It doesn't matter if no names are remembered - I'll just know I need to search on here some more!!

on another site:
http://www.familytreeforum.com/showt...u-make-of-this

(By the way, I don't remember it, but Google remembered it for me!)

There are 5 entries for the Samuel Rogers / Ann Burchill marriage on FamilySearch and none for Thomas House / Eliza, as far as I can see. I don't know whether you ever went to look at the PRs to see if there was an entry that had been crossed out, but I think if there were such an entry, it would likely have been transcribed at least once.

Also looking at FreeBMD, there are 8 names listed for Jun 1839 vol 11 p 206 (the page that Samuel and Ann are on) and 8 for page 205 and 8 for page 207, so I don't think the marriage could have been expunged from the GRO's records at a later stage, or there would be 2 names missing from one of those pages, wouldn't there?

Thanks Kate - I didn't think to google! lol

I can't access my tree at the mo because OH is doing something to it, but I'll have a look to see how far I got a bit later.

Thanks again :D

You must be slipping, Kate, if you didn't remember it after only 4+ years!! lol

Got into my tree now and Ann's marriage is recorded but Eliza's only has the newspaper cipiing attached and although I'd also written a note I didn't include the actual name of Thomas House in it, so no wonder I couldn't find anything!!

I never did contact Bristol RO, so I might do that for my Christmas present! lol

Thanks to the arrival of Bristol PR images on Ancestry I now know that the marriage of Eliza Burchill and Thomas House (Howes) reported in the Bristol papers in 1839 definitely didn't take place, as I suspected

The wedding of her sister Ann, in the paper as having taken place "at the same time" did happen (obviously I knew that), but the surprise was that the witnesses at Ann's wedding were Eliza Burchill and Thomas Howes!

Hmmm.

Weird, don't you think?!

It always amazes me that Victorian novelists, especially the daughters of clergymen, have no real knowledge of the workings of marriage ceremonies and their recording.

You have so many scenarios:

1. Newspaper announcement pre-written
2. Couple assume that "signing their names" constitutes a marriage
3. Marriage - but elderly clergyman gets confused.

What happened to Eliza? Is she on the 1841?

Was the other marriage by licence or banns?